Gareth Manning, Gleaner Writer

Allegations by two Pakistani sleuths that there is no clear evidence cricket coach Bob Woolmer was murdered have been met with stony silence by local police.

According to a Pakistani news agency, Mir Zubair Mahmood and Syed Kaleem Imam, both of whom travelled to Jamaica to assist in the investigations, informed their Interior Ministry in a 40-page report that Jamaican police were yet to find conclusive evidence that Woolmer was strangled. They submitted the report to Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah in Islamabad on Saturday.

Mahmood, who was also the chief investigator in the 2002 murder of United States journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi, Pakistan, said he and fellow investigator Kaleem Imam had based their report on what they had seen and been briefed on by the Jamaican police in Kingston. Mahmood and Imam arrived in the island on April 10 to assist with the investigation.

However, the reports in the Pakistan media starkly contradict comments made by the same detectives prior to their departure from the island on April 27.

As they left for Pakistan two weeks ago, they said they were satisfied with the investigation being carried out by the local police.

During a press briefing the day before their departure, Mahmood told journalists: "I am going home fully satisfied and feel that the investigation is heading in the right direction."

Karl Angell, communications chief for the police force, yesterday declined to comment on the foreign investigators' claims, citing that he had not yet seen the reports.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Mark Shields, who is leading the investigation, is to travel to South Africa this week to interview members of the Woolmer family as well as to update South African police.